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Frontline

A Class Divided (#309)

One of the most requested programs in FRONTLINE's 20-year history, this 1985 documentary recounts one small town teacher's attempt to teach her students about racism and discrimination. In 1968, on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott decided to try a bold experiment: she began awarding special privileges to her blue-eyed students while discriminating against those whose eyes were brown. What's more, she actively encouraged the blue-eyed children to discriminate against their brown-eyed classmates. In "A Class Divided," FRONTLINE tracks down Mrs. Elliott's former third-graders to learn what effect those early lessons on racism and diversity had on their attitudes and behavior later in life. [56 minutes]

This episode has not aired in the past few months on Iowa Public Television.

Series Description: As PBS' premier public affairs series, FRONTLINE's stature is reaffirmed each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human, social and political experience.